Effects of Aging on Inhibitory Learning and Short-Term Memory in Drosophila Melanogaster
Abstract
Two experiments have been performed in young (7 days old), middle-aged (28 days old) and old (49 days old) Drosophila melanogaster. In Experiment 1, the inhibitory conditioning of the Proboscis Extension Response (PER) to sucrose was displayed under three Inter-Trial-Interval (ITI) schedules: 1, 2 or 4 minutes. The results did not reveal any age-related impairment of short-term-memory. The PER suppression performance was higher in middle-aged and old flies than in young ones, whatever the ITI. In Experiment 2, the habituation of the PER to sucrose was induced to investigate the hypothesis of an age-related increase of the non associative processes involvement (sensory adaptation, motor fatigue) in the PER suppression. The results showed that once such peripheral effects were removed, suppression performances no longer varied with age.